


Wash the Blood off my Hands

by Dulin



Series: Thirty Kisses [12]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, Dark, M/M, Post-Endless Waltz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4586844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dulin/pseuds/Dulin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's not coming off."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wash the Blood off my Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge #19 in the LJ Thirty Kisses Challenge.  
> Theme : red

I wake up in a jolt, startled from a bad dream by some imperceptible noise that no one else but I would be able to hear. And, as usual, when I hold out my hand to touch the other side of the bed, he’s not here.

I sigh. I can hear the water running in the bathroom, and his light muttering above it. I see the light under the door. He’s trying again.

I get up, and walk to the bathroom door. I knock, as usual. As usual, he doesn’t answer, like he didn’t even hear. In fact, I’m pretty sure he never hears me knocking. So I just come in.

He’s standing in front of the washbasin. Water is flowing from the faucet. And he’s washing his hands. Again, and again, and again.

I don’t know why, every time, I stare at him with that kind of morbid fascination. I stare at his hands drowned in water, I watch him scratch them raw as he mutters nonsense under his breath. I watch him and he does not see me.

I guess maybe it’s because I didn’t expect that. I mean, I was the fucked-up one during the war. Human weapon and all that. I was the one everyone thought would snap. I was the one who was supposed to end like that. Only I didn’t. Because whatever people say about me saving the world and having a great heart, I’m just not good enough to cry over my dead. Especially not the people I killed. The only time I cried for someone I killed, it ended bad for me. Better to let the dead stay dead.

It happened so quickly. He just … suddenly faded away. He would claim he heard them speaking to him. He would have nightmares. He would do stuff and not remember it afterwards. And then, he began to get up at night to wash his hands.

“It’s not coming off,” I hear him wail, and he scratches harder. 

If he keeps on, he’s gonna hurt himself. Well, I am pretty sure his hands must already hurt like a bitch, but it looks like he’s not even feeling the physical pain. Strange coming from an empath, but he hardly has a conscience of his own body now.

I come closer and catch one of his hands. He looks up at me, and like every night, my heart is torn by the look of utter despair in his green-blue eyes. The terror on his face.

“It’s not coming off, Heero… I tried to wash it, I did… but it’s still there, the blood on my hands… it won’t come off…”

“You don’t have blood on your hands, Quatre,” I say soothingly, already knowing what he’s going to answer.

“Of course I do! My hands… they’re drenched in blood, and it won’t come off!”

He’s trying to get his hands back to put them under the water again, but I won’t let him. I just catch his other hand, and turn the faucet off.

“There’s no blood anymore, Quatre. It’s gone. I swear.”

“No, it’s not,” I feel more than hear him whisper. “All the red… it’s around me all the time… it’s going to swallow me whole.”

He looks at his hands, and shivers. I hold them in mine, and I kiss them, one after the other. I’ve always loved his hands. They’re more suited for playing his violin than piloting a deadly machine like a gundam. But now he hardly touches the violin anymore. 

“Blood everywhere… there’s blood everywhere… the blood I shed…”

I gather him in my arms, holding him close against my chest and I wait patiently, until he starts to cry. It’s the same ritual every night, and I’m never really sure he remembers it in the morning. I find him scratching his hands raw, I hold him back, he speaks about the blood, then I take him in my arms and he cries. And only after that does he accept to follow me back to our bed.

I switch the light off as we leave the bathroom, and tuck him in again. He’s looking at me, and his eyes are still so scared. 

“Make the blood go away, Heero… please? Make it go away…”

I smile bitterly. 

“Shh, just go to sleep now. It’s okay, I’m here.”

He snuggles against me, and I listen as he finally falls asleep. Then, I get up again. I go to the bathroom, close the door behind me, and switch the light on. I walk to the washbasin and turn the water on. And I watch my hands as I put them under the water.

“It won’t come off my hands, either, Quatre…”


End file.
